Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much for being here. This has been most interesting
Mr. Romer, I don't know whether you are aware that Honduras is still one of Canada's countries of focus for our foreign development money. We have chosen 20, and over the next little while we will be analyzing how the countries have been able to use the money, because capacity-building is obviously one of the very important things we have to look at. I mean this in the best possible terms, but there's no sense in continuing to put money someplace where it can't be properly or effectively used, and just churning the same problems over and over. To look for those countries where we know we can do good and be effective and the money will help grow capacity is one of the important tools we need to use to analyze.
I should let you know that not only is Honduras one of our countries of focus, but there are many Canadian NGOs working in Honduras. We have language ability in many cases, which has been helpful in being able to work there. In Newmarket—Aurora, my constituency, a group of men who are retired from their own professions as engineers and architects are developing schools in Honduras. It was very exciting to bring them here to Ottawa to meet with the ambassador from Honduras and have lunch.
When we talk about capacity-building in the country, we had Hernando de Soto as an intervener to the committee, as I'm sure you're aware. I'm sure you're very familiar with his writing. He talked about the extralegal economy and how people can't access capital to grow these businesses.
You're setting up a special zone where businesses will be able to work, compete, and hopefully develop their products for export. We have a free trade agreement that we're negotiating with Honduras, so that will create jobs. But I wonder if you can speak to the key pieces of legislation that need to be developed for this zone to work. Are the judges for Mauritius helping to craft that? Is there opportunity for Canada to be involved in some of that development?